After the Black Spring, Cuba's new repression

When the last of 29 journalists jailed in a notorious 2003 crackdown
was finally freed this year, it signaled to many the end of a dark era. But
Cuban authorities are still persecuting independent journalists through
arbitrary arrests, beatings, and intimidation. A CPJ
special report by Karen Phillips

Published July 6, 2011

Juan González Febles, director of the independent news website Primavera Digital, was running an errand last spring when he
came upon a news story: Police were climbing onto his neighbors’ roofs in
Havana to remove satellite television dishes that the government considers
illegal because they pick up uncensored stations from abroad.

When Febles started taking pictures with his cell phone, officers
quickly arrested him and took him to a neighborhood police station, where he
was held for seven hours and made to erase all of his photos of the dish
seizures, a highly unpopular police activity. Febles, a former librarian who took
up independent journalism in 1998 and now runs the overseas-hosted website,
told CPJ that he has become accustomed
to detentions, which number in the dozens over the years, but that he is still
bothered that his phone is tapped and that he’s followed by security agents in
the streets. The agents sometimes stop him, Febles said, and relay what they’ve
heard in his private phone conversations.

Such is the state of repression in Cuba today. As President Raúl
Castro’s government seeks greater international engagement, it has freed in the
last year more than 20 imprisoned independent journalists and numerous other
political detainees who had been held since the notorious Black Spring
crackdown of 2003. Government officials talk of political and economic reform,
pointing to a plan to introduce high-speed Internet service to the island this
summer. But though the government has changed tactics in suppressing
independent news and opinion, it has not abandoned repressive practices
intended to stifle the free flow of information.

A CPJ investigation has found that the government persists in aggressively
persecuting critical journalists with methods that include arbitrary arrests,
short-term detentions, beatings, smear campaigns, surveillance, and social
sanctions. Today’s tactics have yet to attract widespread international
attention because they are lower in profile than the Black Spring crackdown,
but the government’s oppressive actions are ongoing and significant.

CPJ examined government activities in March and April 2011, two months
with sensitive political milestones, and found that journalists were targeted
in more than 50 instances of repression. The majority of cases involved arrests
by state security agents or police officers, according to CPJ research and
documentation by the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National
Reconciliation and Hablemos Press, a news agency that focuses on human rights.
Most frequently, these journalists were detained on their way to cover a
demonstration or political event and were held in local police stations for
hours or days. In at least 11 cases, the arrests were carried out with
violence, CPJ research shows.

During this period, more than a dozen journalists endured house arrest,
preventing them from reporting on the Communist
Party Congress in April and the eighth anniversary in March of the Black
Spring crackdown that led to the imprisonment of dozens of journalists and dissidents.
Although no journalists have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in the last
year, Cuban authorities in May ominously sentenced six political dissidents to
prison sentences of two to five years.

“Political repression in Cuba has undergone a metamorphosis,” said Elizardo
Sánchez Santa Cruz, president of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and
National Reconciliation. “Before, repression was based on long prison
sentences. Although the Cuban government still subjects dissidents to jail
terms, it has changed substantially from the Black Spring, which was
characterized by long-term sentences.”More typical
now, he said, “are many arrests by the political police, lasting hours, days,
or weeks.”

Perhaps counter-intuitively, the scheduled arrival of broadband
Internet is not expected to improve free expression or access to information.
Because the project will improve the island’s relatively few existing Internet
connections—which are predominantly in government offices, universities, and
other officially approved locations—but not extend connectivity to the general
public, the government and its legion of online bloggers will gain an even
greater technological advantage over critical voices. Independent journalists
will be forced to continue to use expensive Internet access at hotels, pirated
connections bought on the black market, or the politically-tinged access
offered at foreign embassies.

“Official bloggers already benefit from free or low-cost Internet
connections,” said Laritza Diversent, a lawyer and an independent blogger.
“Now, they will have the advantage of a high-speed connection as well.”

A vast, repressive legal structure

Magaly Norvis Suárez, a correspondent with Hablemos Press, has been
detained three times this year by police and state security agents. On one occasion,
she was slapped and kicked by police officers. Another time, officers took her
ID card and held it for several days, essentially condemning her to house
arrest because the law requires individuals to carry identification in public.
During one detention, security agents told her that if she continued to
practice journalism, she could be imprisoned and lose custody of her children.
Her 15-year-old daughter was harassed so relentlessly at school that she
dropped out.

Speaking with CPJ from Havana, Norvis Suárez said the psychological impact
is significant. “It’s very difficult to work under the threat of imprisonment,”
she said, “wondering if I’m imprisoned, what will happen to my family, my
husband, my house.” Talk of political reform aside, the laws that have allowed
Cuba to imprison reporters remain very much in place. They are written in
Article 91 of the penal code, which imposes lengthy prison sentences or death
for those who act against “the independence or the territorial integrity of the
state,” and Law 88 for the Protection of Cuba’s National Independence and
Economy, which imposes up to 20 years in prison for committing acts “aimed at
subverting the internal order of the nation and destroying its political,
economic, and social system.”

This restrictive legal framework applies to the flow of news and
information itself. All authorized domestic news media are controlled by the
Communist Party, which recognizes freedom of the press only “in accordance with
the goals of the socialist society.” Domestic news outlets are state-owned and
supervised by the Communist Party’s Departmentof Revolutionary Orientation. Online information is restricted by
an inter-ministry commission charged with “regulating the information that
comes from worldwide information webs.” Article 19 of Resolution
179 of 2008of the Ministry of
Communication and Computing states that Internet service providers are
obligated to “adopt the necessary measures to impede access to sites with
content that is contrary to social interest, ethics, and good customs; as well
as the use of applications that affect the integrity and security of the
state.”

Independent journalists are forced to operate outside this official
framework. News websites such as Hablemos Press and Primavera
Digital are hosted overseas, with editors in Cuba uploading articles
and updating the sites at embassies or hotels. Other independent journalists
file stories, often by email, to news websites such as Cubanet and
Diario de Cuba
that are based and edited overseas, often by Cuban exiles. Still other
independent journalists operate their own blogs, which are hosted overseas and
updated through embassies or costly hotel connections.

Independent journalists pay another high price: They continue to be
subjected to “acts of repudiation,” the term for rallies at which government
supporters gather outside the homes of people perceived as being critical of
the state. In extreme cases, journalists and political dissidents are prevented
from leaving their homes by chanting crowds of government supporters, as was
the case with a large demonstration held on the eighth anniversary of the Black
Spring crackdown. Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, a recently freed independent
journalist and recipient of the 2008 CPJ International Press Freedom Award, and
his wife, Laura Pollán, a well-known human rights defender, told CPJ that more
than 200 pro-government supporters had gathered outside their home. The couple
was hosting a gathering of newly freed political prisoners and members of the
Ladies in White, a group composed of the former prisoners’ spouses and other
loved ones. The demonstrators stayed for two days, playing the national anthem
and revolutionary songs at high volume from loud speakers and preventing anyone
from leaving the gathering.

State television and, increasingly, the Internet have provided
platforms for smear campaigns against critical journalists and dissidents. The
government proudly announced in February that it had enlisted roughly 1,000
bloggers to denounce critical journalists; many of these “official” bloggers
are government employees, and all enjoy easy, low-cost access to official
Internet connections.

A slickly produced new television series, “Las Razones de Cuba,” which
is also streamed online, presents independent journalists and dissidents as
enemies of the state. Using fuzzy footage of “suspicious” activities (such as
journalists entering a foreign embassy), a menacing soundtrack, and interviews
with official “experts,” the program seeks to portray critics as criminals bent
on toppling the state. Journalist Dagoberto Valdés, who directs the online
newsmagazine Convivencia, and the prominent
blogger Yoani Sánchez have been singled out on the program.

A digital battle for free expression

Perhaps surprisingly in a country with few private Internet
connections—overall penetration is said to be only about 14 percent—the
struggle for free expression is being waged almost exclusively in digital
media. Despite the many hurdles to online access, Cuba has a vibrant
alternative blogosphere that consists of about 40 critical journalistic blogs,
all of which are hosted on overseas servers. Blogging and increasingly Twitter
offer platforms not only for reflection, analysis, and reporting, but also for responding
to government smears.

In response to “Las Razones de Cuba,” the blogger Sánchez has produced her
own talk show, “Las Razones Ciudadanas” which is video-streamed online. In each
episode, civil society members discuss topics such as independent journalism. Reinaldo Escobar,
a blogger and the husband of Sánchez, noted in one episode that the advent of
mobile telephones had transformed independent journalism on the island,
allowing witnesses and sources to communicate more easily with journalists and
enabling reporters to post content on Twitter. It was only in 2008 that the
government allowed consumer sales of personal electronic goods such as mobile
phones.

“Twitter is the true protective shield for the independent press and
alternative bloggers in Cuba,” said the exiled Cuban journalist Manuel Vázquez
Portal, himself a former political prisoner. Still, sending a text or posting a
Twitter message from a cell phone is costly, about US$1 in a country where the
average monthly income is equivalent to US$15 to US$30. Government supporters
have been quick to use Twitter as well. For each Twitter message critical of
state policy, there is an onslaught of disparaging messages from pro-government
users.

The government has been intent on keeping digital access tilted in its
favor. Private Internet connections are rare in Cuba. Resolution 180 of 2003
allows only those with Cuban convertible currency—a monetary form generally
used by foreigners—to obtain individual Internet access, which must be approved
by the government-owned Internet service provider ETECSA. Government officials, intellectuals with
government ties, and some academics and doctors are among the relatively few
Cubans with authorized passwords to the state’s Internet service.

Cubans without private connections can turn to state-run Internet cafés,
but users there can expect identity checks, heavy surveillance, and
restrictions on access to non-Cuban sites. The cost of uncensored connections
at hotels is about US$8 per hour; government-issued Internet passwords can be
purchased on black market sites, but they, too, are expensive and are monitored
for political content. Many journalists interviewed by CPJ make daily or weekly
trips to foreign embassies to use free Internet connections, a practice that
puts them under further government scrutiny. Journalists working in the
provinces, with few hotels and no embassies, have an even harder time accessing
the Web.

A US$70 million fiber-optic cable project, financed by the Venezuelan
government and laid this year by the French company Alcatel-Lucent,is likely to tilt the field even more in the government’s
direction. The project,scheduled to
become operational this summer, will increase Internet connection speeds exponentially
but will have limited reach, improving existing connections in government
offices, universities, and other official sites rather than increasing overall
connectivity, according to the official newspaper Granma.
(The importance the Cuban government attaches to restrictive connectivity was
evident in the December 2009 arrest of Alan Gross, a contractor for the U.S. Agency
for International Development who is serving a 15-year sentence on charges of
illegally helping Cubans set up Internet connections.)

“While the introduction of broadband is potentially a giant step
forward for connectivity, if it is implemented under the same rules of control,
suspicion, and institutional access it could very well be used as another
mechanism of control,” said Ted Henken, a Cuba expert and professor of black
and Hispanic studies at City University of New York. In April, Henken was
detained by state security agents and told he could not return to the island
after he had met with independent Cuban bloggers.

On reform, talk but little action

The government has been unwilling to turn away from its longstanding
suppression of free speech—even as its leaders talk of economic and political
change. In fall 2010, President Castro announced plans to reduce the state work
force by more than half a million employees and increase licenses for private
enterprises. By March 2011, 171,000 new private business licenses had been
issued, press reports said, although independent economists told CPJ that high
fees and a shortage of raw materials were stifling the effort. During the
Communist Party Congress in April, Castro officially replaced his brother Fidel
as head of the Communist Party in the first leadership change since the party’s
founding in 1965. He also announced the
introduction of term limits for party officials.

And in March, Cuba released the last of the 29 journalists imprisoned
during the Black Spring crackdown, when the government swept up dozens of
dissidents and handed them prison sentences of up to 27 years. The release of
detainees followed negotiations between the Cuban government and the Catholic
Church, with the help of Spanish diplomats. But freedom has not been without a
high cost: Most of the freed journalists and their families were forced to
leave their homeland for Spain, where their resettlement has been filled with
economic and professional challenges. Three jailed journalists who refused to
go into exile were released on a form of parole that leaves them vulnerable to
re-arrest.

Cuban journalists and human rights defenders expressed great skepticism
that economic changes on the island would be accompanied any time soon by
improvements in press freedom. The experiences of independent reporter Dania
Virgen García bolster that view.

“It seems like just about every two weeks they threaten me, they detain
me, or I have to spend the night in jail,” said Virgen García, whose reporting
appears on her blog and on the Miami-based news website Cubanet.
“I know every police station in Havana.” Virgen García has faced arrest, smear
campaigns, and physical assault for her reporting on human rights abuses and
substandard prison conditions. Recently she awoke to a group of schoolchildren
and teachers shouting pro-Castro slogans and insults outside her home.

In April, while on her way to cover a meeting of ex-political prisoners
in Havana, Virgen García was arrested by state security agents and taken to La
Lisa police station, she told CPJ in a phone interview. During the ordeal, she said,
she was slapped on the face and manhandled by police agents and doused with
pepper spray by a prison guard. Virgen García was released six hours later, but
suffered extensive bruising and persistent eye inflammation.

If the revolving jailhouse door of low-level repression seems more
benign than lengthy prison terms, the death in May of dissident Juan Wilfredo
Soto gives one pause. Soto, a member of the Central Opposition Coalition and a
former political prisoner, was arrested by two police officers when he refused
to leave a public park. After handcuffing Soto, police beat him with batons,
according to independent Cuban press reports. Soto was released from custody
but died days later from what officials called “multiple organ failure due to pancreatitis,” an
assertion met with disbelief by independent journalists and opposition groups. International rights groups
and governments called on Cuban authorities to commission an independent
inquiry, but Havana did not publicly respond.

Among those calling for an independent investigation was the European
Parliament, illustrating the sometimes-conflicting impulses on both sides of
the Atlantic. Although the European Union restricted diplomatic relations and
development cooperation with Cuba from 2003 to 2008, the EU has since opened a
political dialogue with Havana, and the European Commission has provided the
island with millions in aid. In 2010, the Commission allocated 20 million euros
(US$28.5 million) for food security, environmental adaptation, and professional
and academic exchanges, according to the European External Action
Service.

But Havana has yet to secure its most-sought goal with the EU: the
undoing of the Common Position, an EU-wide policy adopted in 1996 that
conditions full relations with the island on Havana’s progress on human rights
and democracy. The repeal of the Common Position would normalize diplomatic
relationsand solidify development cooperation
for the long term. In February, Cuba’s minister of foreign affairs, Bruno Rodríguez,
met in Brussels with the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, for the
fifth in a series of meetings begun in 2008 to explore the future of EU-Cuba
relations. Reiterating Havana’s long-held position, Rodríguez said relations
should be normalized without “interference in the internal affairs of states,”
international press reports said. The intransigence implied by such a statement
does not bode well for human rights or press freedom.

“There are a lot of obstacles to normalizing relations at this time,”
said Susanne Gratius, an expert on EU-Latin American policy at FRIDE, a
Madrid-based foreign policy institute. As obstacles, she
cited “the authoritarian nature of the regime, human rights, and political
rights, where there has been no change despite the recent economic reforms.” To
repeal the Common Position, Gratius noted, consensus would have to be reached
among the EU’s 27 member states, which have divergent views on Cuba. Sweden,
Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic are particularly opposed to abandoning
the Common Position on human rights and political grounds.

“It’s always the same story: You have some progress, and then you have
a step back,” Gratius said of Cuba. “I think in the long run there is a
movement toward political opening, but you still have these reversals that come
with human rights abuses.”

Karen Phillips, a freelance writer, has served as CPJ’s
journalist assistance associate and, most recently, as the research associate
for CPJ’s Americas program.

CPJ’s Recommendations

To the Cuban government

• End the use of detention, physical
violence, surveillance, and smear campaigns against independent journalists and
bloggers.

• Repeal Article 91 of the penal code
and Law 88 for the Protection of Cuba’s National Independence and Economy,
provisions used by the government to unjustly imprison independent journalists
and political dissidents.

• As a signatory to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, fully meet the obligation to allow journalists
to work freely and without fear of reprisal.

• Remove all legal barriers to
individual Internet access, and allow bloggers to host their sites on Cuban
domains.

• With the arrival of high-speed
Internet, extend access to the population at large, including journalists and
bloggers.

• Eliminate all conditions on the
release of journalists detained during the Black Spring. Vacate parole for
the newly freed journalists who remain in Cuba. Allow exiled journalists to
return to the island without condition.

To the International Community

To the U.N. Human Rights Council

• Hold the Cuban government
accountable for its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.

• Urge Cuba to review trial processes
and travel permit arrangements to ensure they conform to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

• The U.N. special rapporteur on
freedom of expression should request authorization to assess the state of
freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Cuba and report findings and
recommendations.

To the European Union

• Press the
government to heed its call to grant freedom of information and expression,
including Internet access, to all Cubans.

• Urge Cuban
authorities to lift conditions on newly released political prisoners so they
are indeed free and not vulnerable to re-imprisonment.

• In the
evaluation of the Common Position on Cuba, predicate future dialogue with Cuban
authorities on substantial and specific improvements. Those improvements should
include the implementation of international
human rights covenants signed by Cuba,
and the granting to all Cubans of freedom of expression and access of information
through all media, including the Internet.

• Create a welcome environment throughout the European Union for
Cuban dissidents released from prison but forced into exile. Facilitate their
access to EU-funded social and training programs.

To the Organization of American
States

• While Cuba
has put aside rejoining the Organization of American States, any future
participation in the OAS must ensure that Cuba conform to OAS principles,
including the right to freedom of expression and access to information. In the
event Cuba joins the OAS, the organization must ensure Cuba’s compliance with international
freedom of expression standards.

• All OAS member states should promote
a vigorous debate on human rights violations in Cuba, including restrictions to
Internet access.

• The OAS rapporteur on freedom of
expression should request authorization to assess the state of freedom of the
press and freedom of expression in Cuba and report findings and
recommendations.

To the technology and blogging community:

• Continue to support Cuban bloggers
by publicizing their work and linking to their blogs.

• Companies
that provide technology infrastructure to Cuba must ensure their work product
is not used to restrict freedom of expression. Companies should follow the
principles established by Global Network Initiative, which seeks to ensure that
technology companies uphold international freedom of expression standards.

• Support
social media applications that are popular in Cuba.

To the U.S. government:

• In accord with
the April 2009 directive issued by President Barack Obama, the administration
and Congress should allow U.S. companies that commit to Global Network
Initiative principles to provide digital support and infrastructure to Cubans.
The 2009 directive was intended to increase the free flow
of information to the Cuban people and expand communications links between the
United States and Cuba.

• Allow U.S.
companies to establish fiber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications
facilities linking the United States and Cuba.

• Encourage
information technology and social media companies to enable Internet chat
services in Cuba, as it is now allowed under U.S. regulations.

• Ensure that U.S.
policy is open and transparent in relation to its support for dissidents.